


send me a signal, I'll throw you a line

by hapakitsune



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3910087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were several things in life that Sean was absolutely sure of: one, he would never understand Hank’s obsession with that weird cartoon The Flintstones; two, Alex would kill anyone who touched his Beatles records; and three, Charles and Erik would always be friends, no matter their differences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	send me a signal, I'll throw you a line

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt 'hospital stay' for [](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[hc_bingo](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/). Thanks to [](http://novembersmith.livejournal.com/profile)[novembersmith](http://novembersmith.livejournal.com/) for suggesting the title, which is from _Only the Good Die Young_. I've kind of randomly chosen other X-Men to fill out the students, but since that seems to be what they've done in the films anyway, I think I can be forgiven.

The professor was quiet for the first month after the beach and all of them knew better than to bother him. Sean spent a lot of time flying over the mansion, looking out over the gorgeous landscape, Hank secluded himself in his lab to work on building a new Cerbro, and Alex did -- something. Probably bothered Hank.

After those first weeks, though, the Prof made them start studying again. Well, made Sean and Alex study. He closed them in an impromptu classroom with Hank, which would have been boring except that Alex and Hank got into a fight about every five minutes. Their latest was about whether Hank was supposed to teach them about sex, which Hank kept insisting he wasn’t and Alex, because he was a little shit, kept insisting that he was. Sean propped his elbows on his desk, putting his chin in his hand, and watched them with growing amusement. He had the feeling that if Hank wasn’t blue, he would be bright red as he fumblingly explained that he didn’t have a whole lot of experience to teach from.

Hank also made them practice using their powers while he watched, eyes intent. Sean discovered that he could talk through radios if he tried, and that he could make himself vibrate. When he did _that_ , he and Alex exchanged delighted looks and broke into laughter when Hank just looked confused.

Through all of this, the Prof was mostly MIA, apparently locked inside Cerebro in an attempt to find more mutants. Since he wasn’t the most mobile these days, he sent Sean and Alex out to bring them in.

The first girl they find was hiding out in Central Park. She was rail thin and clearly exhausted, and she shrank back from them. Alex made an irritated noise and said, “We’re not going to _hurt_ you.”

Sean punched him in the shoulder and knelt down next to her. “You can do weird things, right?” he said softly. “Things that scare you.”

She looked up through tangled strands of blonde hair. “You know?” she whispered, astonished.

“Yeah,” Sean said. “I do.” He cleared his throat, narrowed his eyes at the water of the lake, and let out a small scream that sent a trail of ripples across the surface and startled the ducks into flight.

She sniffed and lifted her hand. Sean was reminded, briefly, of Erik -- Magneto -- and then the earth underneath Sean began to rise. Soon, he was kneeling on a tiny hill. He and Alex looked at each other, then back at the girl.

“That is awesome,” Alex said and he stuck out his hand. “Alex. That’s Sean.”

“Hi,” Sean said, waving.

The girl wiped her nose on the hem of her (filthy) sleeve and shook Alex’s hand. “Petra,” she said softly.

“Petra,” Alex said, nodding. “You wanna go somewhere with food? And hot water? For showers?”

Sean elbowed Alex again, but Petra was grinning hugely. “Where?” she asked excitedly.

Once showered and dressed in clean clothes, Petra was pretty, though still scrawny, and she took to Hank like a fish to water. She followed him around like a puppy, fascinated by his fur and his endless supply of scientific facts. She had, by the end of the first week, decided that she wanted to be a scientist, too. Sean had to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep himself from laughing at the look on Alex’s face.

The next girl they find was named Ororo and she nearly brought a lightning bolt down on their heads when Sean and Petra showed up (they had voted that Alex no longer be allowed to recruit), but she listened to what they said.

After that, Sean gratefully gave up recruiting duties to Ororo and Petra who, while young, were infinitely more soothing and kindly and, frankly, trustworthy than him and Alex. By the time the one year anniversary of the beach incident, as Hank kept calling it, rolled around, they had almost twenty-five mutant kids running around the mansion.

The prof had actually started teaching classes again, which was nice. Sean had missed the prof’s soothing voice, but quickly found that he had changed. Gone was the professor who pushed them hard to find out their limits and in his place was someone much more measured and considering. Sean thought that maybe Erik’s defection had pushed him further into his whole turn-the-other-cheek, peace-loving perspective. He didn’t say as much aloud, but when the professor slanted him a sad, slightly knowing look, Sean suspected he had heard him anyway

Then one day the professor simply wasn’t in class and no one seemed to know why. Sean made Hank take care of the class and went looking for him. He found the professor collapsed on the floor of his bedroom, his shaking hands over his face.

Sean helped the professor into his wheelchair and said, “Hey, Professor. Professor.” There was no response. Sean tried, “Charles,” instead, and that had the professor -- Charles -- blinking and looking up at him.

“Sean,” Charles said, frowning. “Why aren’t you in class?”

“Why aren’t you?” shot back Sean. “Are you all right? What happened?”

Charles looked as though he were trying to remember. “I got out of bed and I felt slightly faint,” he said slowly. “And then my arms buckled when I tried to get in the -- chair.” He blinked rapidly and looked up at Sean. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Sean squinted at Charles’s face, which _was_ flushed, and took in the overbright eyes, the rapid breathing, and the heat he could feel from Charles’s skin. “Yeah,” Sean agreed. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“I don’t need a hospital,” muttered Charles, but Sean just ignored him and went to find Alex. Together, they managed to get Charles into a car and Alex drove them to the nearest hospital, Charles complaining the entire time.

“This is absurd, it is just a fever,” he was saying in a distant, vague voice.

“Yeah, and you’re paralyzed from the waist down,” said Alex as he took a turn on two wheels. “It might, you know, be a problem.”

“Not the _waist_ down,” Charles said irritably.

The hospital didn’t ask too many questions, just took Charles back to take his temperature. Sean and Alex waited until a nurse came out and said that Charles had pneumonia and would have to stay at least overnight to make sure there weren’t any complications.

“One of us should stay,” Sean said to Alex, who nodded.

“You,” Alex said decidedly. “I’ll go back to the mansion and tell Hank what’s going on.”

Sean nodded and watched him go. He skimmed a magazine, then thought whether he should find a way to let Magneto know.

Sean knew that a lot of the younger mutants had heard versions of “the beach incident” from Hank and Alex, though Sean had always been reluctant to say too much. The general reaction was one of anger towards Magneto on Charles’s behalf and Seand didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t _like_ that. He wasn’t even sure how _he_ knew it wasn’t like that, except that Charles never said Erik’s name, yet there was a chess board in the rec room that none of the kids used and the position of the pieces changed day by day.

There were several things in life that Sean was absolutely sure of: one, he would never understand Hank’s obsession with that weird cartoon _The Flintstones_ ; two, Alex would kill anyone who touched his Beatles records; and three, Charles and Erik would always be friends, no matter their differences.

Erik would want to know, Sean reasoned and he dug in his pocket for his wallet. He dumped out some coins, then pulled out the scrap of paper he had found shoved underneath his door two days after the beach incident. In Raven’s sloppy handwriting was a ten digit number and the words, _just in case._

Sean looked at it for a moment. Then he went to the pay phone, put a quarter in, and dialed the number. It rang four times before a generic answering machine picked up. Suddenly unaccountably nervous, Sean said, “Hi, uh, you gave me this number in case -- well, I’m not entirely sure what you meant, but you should know that Charles is in the hospital. He’s all right, I think, but I thought you and -- him. You. You guys. I thought you should know.”

He hung up before he could make an even bigger idiot out of himself. and banged his head against the wall a couple of times. “Stupid,” he muttered. “Why did you do that?”

Sighing heavily, he returned to his seat, ignoring the slightly frightened stares of the other people in the waiting room, and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. He dozed off and was woken sometime later by a small hand on his shoulder.

He blinked his eyes open and looked up at Raven -- Mystique -- who was wearing her blonde college girl face. “Hi,” she said, a half-smile on her face. “Thanks for -- for calling.”

Sean nodded, struggling upright in time to see Erik storm in and start arguing with the nurse. “Oh, god,” Sean said mournfully, “The professor is going to kill me.”

Mystique snorted and sat down next to him, stretching out her legs. “He’ll be happy.”

“I don’t think --” Sean started and then Erik just shoved his way through the doors, the nurse chasing after him. “I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea.”

Mystique rolled her eyes and pulled him upright. "Come on, let's go."

They snuck in and found Charles's bed towards the back of the ward. Erik was sitting on the provided chair, holding Charles's hand. He looked up as if daring them to comment, then resumed stroking the back of Charles's hand, speaking softly to him. Sean bit his lip and turned to leave, but then Erik barked out, "Wait."

Sean looked around guiltily and saw that Erik was frowning at him. "How did he get pneumonia?" Erik asked abruptly. "Are none of you taking care of him?"

"We're taking care of him," Sean said defensively. "It's just hard, with the legs and everything. The nurse said it was a common complication of –"

 _They don't know_ , Charles said inside Sean's head before he could finish and Sean mentally swore. _Language_ , Charles added mildly.

Erik looked blankly from Charles to Sean, then up at Mystique. Mystique shrugged, but she looked concerned. "Complications?" he asked dangerously. "From what?"

"Erik," Charles said softly.

"Complications from what?" repeated Erik, looking down at Charles. "What is he talking about?"

"I'm a paraplegic," Charles said and, when Erik looked at him, "I'm paralyzed. I cannot walk."

Mystique gasped, eyes going huge, and then she rushed out of the ward. Sean debated going after her, but Charles said, _She wants to be alone_ , so he stayed put.

Erik's face had crumpled in on itself. He half-collapsed over Charles's bed, still clutching his hand, and whispered wetly, "Is this – was this what I did?"

Charles's face was very white now and he reached out with his free hand to touch Erik's face. Sean shifted uncomfortably. "Erik," he said softly, "I don't blame you."

"You should," Erik whispered. "You shouldn't forgive people so easily."

Charles smiled, tremulous and soft. "Somebody has to."

Erik started crying for real then and Sean decided that he needed to leave. He tugged the curtains closed around the bed and went to find Mystique.

He found her sitting on her chair in the waiting room, holding a tissue to her eyes. She looked up at him and said, "Why didn't you _say_ anything?"

"I guess – I just forgot that you didn't know," Sean admitted. "We've kind of gotten used to it."

"You shouldn't have to!" She got to her feet and started pacing. "Was there no one who could fix him?"

"What happened to being proud of who you are?" Sean asked.

"He wasn't born paralyzed," Mystique hissed. "It's different."

"Erik wasn't born with that tattoo on his arm," Sean said quietly. "Do you want to tell him to fix that, too?"

Mystique went quiet. She stared at him for a long moment, then asked, "When did you get so smart?"

Sean shrugged, mouth twitching up in a smile. "I've been spending a lot of time with Hank."

 

 

All three of them stayed the night. Mystique managed to get them in the bunkroom for the medical residents by stealing a keycard. Sean laid awake, listening to them breathe and trying to make sense of everything.

Sean had overheard Petra talking to some of the newer students about Charles and Erik, her story clearly secondhand and cobbled together from observation. She had said something about how sometimes people who still care about each other can't be around each other anymore and tiny Suzanne Chan had asked, "Like when parents get divorced?" and Sean had to turn away quickly to stifle his laughter.

Sean could see how they would think that, but he knew that it was deeper than that. They had affected each other's lives so profoundly that so simple an explanation just didn't make sense. They weren't divorced, not at all. Sean could see that when they were together. They complemented each other, and separate, they weren't completely whole.

When he woke up in the morning, Mystique and Erik had already been awake for almost an hour. Erik was sitting vigil by Charles's bed and Mystique was drinking the cafeteria's coffee with a disgusted look on her face.

"The doctor said he could go today," she told him. "Do you have a way to get him back to the mansion?

"Yes," Sean said. "I'll call Alex."

He collect-called the mansion and told Alex to pick them up. He carefully didn't say that Erik and Mystique were there, anticipating the shocked look on Alex's face.

He wasn't disappointed. Alex tripped on the curb when he saw Mystique and fell flat on his face. Sean tried not to laugh, but failed utterly. Alex flipped him off before pushing himself to his feet.

"Anything else you want to tell me?" he asked grumpily. "I guess Magneto's here too –"

Right on cue, Erik strode out of the hospital, Charles in his arms. Charles was protesting, his face red, but Erik ignored him. Sean grinned; the nurses hadn't been happy about letting Erik carry Charles out rather than having him wheeled out, but Erik just glared them into submission. Sean had a sneaking suspicion that it was some kind of penance for Erik.

"Sean," Alex gritted out, "I am going to kill you next training session."

They did manage to get home without incident. Sean was crammed in the backseat next to Erik, since Mystique had claimed the front passenger seat right away, and Erik kept looking at Charles with this terrible, devastated look in his eyes that he replaced with a horrible smile every time Charles looked back.

Ororo was waiting with Hank back at the mansion, her small hands on the back of the wheel chair. She stared openly when Erik set Charles in the chair, but showed remarkable restraint by not asking any questions. Hank flinched when he saw Mystique, who had changed back into her usual form, and she gave him a very toothy smile.

"What is he doing here?" Hank hissed to the professor as they headed inside the mansion, everyone grouped around the professor like the a strange honor guard.

"I don't know," Charles said calmly. "I haven't asked."

"And you haven't –" Hank waved his hand vaguely at his head.

"No," Charles said flatly, and his tone of voice made it clear that there was to be no further discussion regarding Erik's presence.

The young students watched as they passed, their eyes wide. Sean could them whispering, murmuring that it was _Erik_ , you know, the one the Professor was friends with, and Erik's jaw clenched tighter and tighter.

"We shouldn't stay," Mystique said once they were in Charles's room on the ground floor. "They don't want us here."

"I want you here," Charles said firmly, though his voice was weak. "Stay for a bit, please?

"Yes," Erik said, sitting down. "We'll stay."

Sean made Alex and Hank leave, shooing them out and closing the door behind him. The moment the door shut, Alex burst out, "What is going on?"

Hank shushed him and they glared at each other for a moment before turning their eyes on Sean. Sean sighed and hissed, "Not here."

They relocated to the rec room, where they sat in a corner apart from the kids. "Mystique left me her number a while ago," Sean explained softly. "In case of things like this."

"And you just _called_ it?" asked Alex in disbelief.

"He doesn't hate them," said Sean. "I think he misses them, actually."

"Misses them? Erik is the reason he's para –" Alex started.

"And he doesn't care," snapped Sean, suddenly frustrated. "It was an accident. They – they need each other."

Alex rolled his eyes and went to go play Monopoly with some of the kids. Hank didn't move, looking thoughtful. "Do you think they're in love?" he asked Sean.

Sean shrugged. "I'm not the telepath," he said. "Does it matter?"

"No," Hank said after a moment. "I just forget, sometimes, what they were like when they were together."

 

 

Erik and Mystique stayed for three days, rarely straying far from Charles's side. Mystique did occasionally come out and talk to them, though it was strained and awkward when Hank was around. The younger kids seemed to be afraid of her, and she stayed away from them, her face twisting sadly when she heard them whispering behind her back.

Sean let her show him some of the house's secrets, like the fake bookshelf in the library and the secret passage way hidden in the east hallway. Sean started thinking about improvements they could make to the mansion to make it more inhabitable and more useful for educating mutant students. He didn't mention any of them to Mystique, though; they may have been getting along, but he couldn't forget that they were working at oppositions now.

When Mystique and Erik left, Charles wheeled out to say good-bye. There was a moment where Erik bent in close and Sean looked away quickly so they could have a semblance of privacy. He looked back a minute later and saw that Charles was red and Erik looked vaguely smug.

They exchanged a few words and then left together, striding off across the property, no doubt to be picked up by Azazel. Sean stood next to Charles's wheelchair, watching them go, and couldn't decide if he was glad to see them go.

When the last of Erik's turtlenecked-torso had vanished from sight, Charles looked up at Sean and said, "Thank you for calling them."

"No problem, professor," Sean said. "Go inside. You're supposed to be in bed."

Charles laughed. "You're worse than Erik," he said lightly, but he wheeled himself inside. Sean looked around at the clear sky, the light still pale in the early morning, and decided that it was perfect weather for flying.


End file.
